Edge of the Darkness (Hell on Earth Book 4)

by Brenda K. Davies

  “Corson,” she greeted as she beamed at him.

  Corson grinned at her. “This is… amazing. It’s so good to see you.”

  “It’s so good to see you too.”

  They hugged again before Corson turned to his Chosen and held his hand out to her. “Fiora, this is my Chosen, Wren. Wren, this is my good friend, Fiora. We believed she was dead.”

  “In many ways, I was,” Fiora said as she stared at Wren’s outstretched hand.

  “Humans often shake hands when they meet,” Bale informed her.

  “Oh.” Fiora grasped Wren’s outstretched hand. I stifled a laugh when she gave it an enthusiastic shake.

  “It’s more like this,” Wren said and slowed Fiora’s shake to something more human in nature.

  “Oh, sorry,” Fiora muttered.

  “Don’t apologize,” Bale said. “We’re all still learning how to deal with each other. You’ll get there; we all will.”

  “Yes, you will,” Corson said.

  When he turned to Bale, I saw the hesitation on his face before his gaze swung to me. His orange eyes hardened. I gave the adhene demon a look that dared him to attack me.

  Then his attention shifted back to Bale, and the smile he gave her was so full of love it set my teeth on edge. There was nothing between these two, but was there once? We all had our numerous casual encounters, but I would kill any of Bale’s if I came across them.

  “I’m so glad you’re okay,” Corson said.

  “I’m glad you’re okay too.”

  Though Corson embraced Fiora, he didn’t hug Bale. However, I sensed he wanted to. I doubted his hesitance had anything to do with me; I’d bet she usually wasn’t the hugging type.

  And then she stepped forward and embraced him. Corson stood awkwardly for a second before he smiled broadly and hugged her back. Despite his Chosen’s marks on his neck, I barely resisted tearing him away from her. The earring swaying in his ear was almost impossible to resist, and I pictured tearing it from him before punching him in the face.

  “Are you okay?” Corson asked Bale as they separated.

  “It’s been an adventure.”

  “I can’t wait to hear about it.”

  Shax and Magnus embraced Fiora while Hawk and the other women came forward to introduce themselves.

  “Lix,” Bale greeted when the skellein stepped in front of her.

  “I was worried we wouldn’t see you again,” Lix said as he tipped a large hat toward her. Then he grasped her arms with his bony hands and drew her close to hug her. He didn’t acknowledge me before turning and walking away.

  Bale hugged Shax, but she stood across from Magnus as they surveyed each other. And then she extended her hand toward the demon of illusions. Magnus grasped her hand and pulled her forward to embrace her.

  “Friends hug, Bale,” he said as he patted her back. “Friends hug.”

  Bale remained stiff in his arms for long enough that I was about to step forward and pull him away. Then she rested her hands against his back and hugged him in return.

  “I suppose we are friends now,” she said.

  “That must have killed you to admit,” he quipped.

  Bale laughed and stepped away from Magnus. “Don’t push it, or I might still kill you.”

  Amusement shone in Magnus’s silver eyes. “You’d miss me too much.”

  Bale grunted in response, and Magnus laughed.

  “We have a lot to catch up on,” Corson said.

  When his eyes landed on me again, hostility shimmered there, but I didn’t anticipate an attack here. They hated me, but they loved Bale more, and they wouldn’t do anything to risk her life.

  I despised their do-gooder, follow-the-leader ways, but I grudgingly respected them for seeking to protect my Chosen.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Bale

  I sat in the dark restaurant and stared at the skull hanging on the wall across from me. The two horns curling out of the sides of its head resembled a hell creature, but this was an Earth animal.

  As I stared into its empty eye sockets, I felt as if the dead animal was judging me. I’d never been one for imagination, there was no room for it in Hell, but now I was considering taking the judgmental thing and smashing it to pieces.

  It wasn’t the skull judging me, but my guilt and uncertainty about myself. I’d given myself to Wrath, and now I was back with my friends, and I had no idea how to handle it, especially since I was fighting against going outside and giving myself to him again.

  He left the building shortly after I reunited with everyone. While I settled at the table to tell them what happened, he stood nearby, casually meeting the gaze of every paliton glaring at him.

  As the night wore on and the crowd dispersed, Wrath rested his hand on Zorn’s neck and the two of them left without a word. However, he hadn’t gone far as I sensed him somewhere out there.

  My gaze shifted to the floor-to-ceiling windows on the other side of the room. The falling snow created a soft ticking sound as it bounced off the glass. When the wind swirled across the land, it whipped up snow from the ground, and the noise became louder, but Wrath didn’t return to take shelter from the storm.

  I’d led Fiora to her room over an hour ago, but I hadn’t retreated to mine. I couldn’t settle down yet, not when I felt like I was being pulled in two different directions. So, I returned here and slid into a booth to sip whiskey and wait though I had no idea what I was waiting for; Wrath would not come to me.

  A footstep drew my attention to the large double doors leading into the lobby a second before Corson stepped through them. His presence didn’t surprise me as I realized he was the reason I was waiting. He stopped by the bar and pulled a glass down from the rack before continuing to me.

  He slid into the booth to sit across from me and rested his hands on the table as his citrine eyes studied me. I braced myself for what was to come. I had no idea what he would say, but I deserved his censure.

  “Whiskey?” I inquired and lifted the bottle. I’d wiped some of the dust away to reveal the label, and my fingers had cleared some more of the glass, but the bottle was still more obscured than visible.

  He pushed his glass toward me. “Sure.”

  I filled his glass to the brim with the amber liquid and pushed it back toward him. Compared to mjéod, human drinks were mild, but I did enjoy the taste and burn of the whiskey in my belly.

  “So, Wrath,” he said.

  “Wrath,” I said.

  “You knew after your fight with him in the minotaur’s cave, didn’t you?”

  It was so like Corson to strike straight at the heart of things. “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “What was I supposed to say? One of our greatest enemies is my Chosen, and I plan to kill him?”

  “You can’t kill him, Bale; that will only destroy you too.”

  “I can’t kill him now, but I planned to do it then. I’ve always known I would die in battle, or give my life during a fight, so dying because I killed one of our enemies wasn’t that different.”

  “And now?”

  “And now….” I looked away from him and back to the empty, judgmental eyes of the skull. “I can’t kill him. I…” I gulped as I forced out words I never thought I’d utter. “I care too much for him.”

  I glanced at Corson to see his reaction, but he didn’t look at all astonished by my admission.

  “He doesn’t bear your mark,” he said.

  I closed my eyes and hung my head. “No.”

  “You won’t be able to resist for much longer.”

  “I know.”

  “What do you plan to do?”

  When I opened my eyes and met his gaze again, I saw the glimmer of unease that flashed across his face.

  “I won’t kill him,” Corson said flatly. “Not unless he forces my hand. I will not kill him, Bale.”

  “I can’t do it.”

  “I know, but I won’t take his life if it mean
s taking yours, and neither will anyone else here, not even Magnus. Besides, you don’t want him dead anyway.”

  “No, I don’t.” I lifted my glass and gulped whiskey before setting it down again. “But he’s our enemy.”

  “Is he?”

  I desperately sought the answer to that question. Is he still the enemy? There were so many times when the answer was a resounding no, but I was terrified he’d try to kill Kobal if he got the chance, and I couldn’t let that happen.

  No matter what I felt for Wrath, no matter what this was becoming between us, we were not the most crucial piece in this puzzle. Countless others counted on us to establish peace on this plane; our lives were not more valuable than that myriad of others. I’d fought for the greater good and the bigger picture my entire life, as had Corson and Kobal; that would never change.

  “He said all the fallen angels are dead,” I said.

  “Do you believe him?”

  “Yes. There was no reason for him to lie about it, and we haven’t seen any of them. They were never known to remain hidden. If any of them remained, we would know about it.”

  “That’s one less thing to worry about.”

  We sat in silence for a few minutes as we sipped our drinks. I didn’t question why Corson was taking the revelation that Wrath was my Chosen so well. He’d found his Chosen; he knew what it was like to need another with a savage intensity.

  He also knew what it was like to love another. I didn’t love Wrath, but when I recalled him smiling in the snow as Zorn pranced around him, I realized I could come to love him far easier than I ever would have believed possible. Last month, I wanted him dead, and now I wanted him back in my arms.

  “Do you trust him?” Corson asked.

  “To protect me, absolutely. Not to kill my king, no.”

  “That can’t be allowed.”

  “I would never allow it.”

  “I would stop him.”

  I met and held his gaze. “I wouldn’t expect anything less. I would stop him too, but I couldn’t kill him. In the beginning, I was so certain I would be the one to destroy him, and myself, but I can’t. However, I would never allow him to kill Kobal.”

  “I know. I couldn’t have stayed away from Wren either, if she were on the other side of this war. She did consider me the enemy, though.”

  “I remember. Did you ever think that maybe we’re all the enemy? Who are we to say we’re completely right? Who are the craetons to say they’re completely right? Maybe we’re all wrong.”

  Corson gave me a wan smile. “Careful, you’re starting to sound like Caim.”

  “He’s another one I like a lot more than I ever would have thought possible. I was upset when Mytaz froze him. I felt like I lost a friend, and I had.”

  “Okay, now you’ve pushed it too far. Take that back.”

  I chuckled as Corson flexed his hands on the table.

  “Honestly, I’ve grown to like the fallen angel, even if I would like to choke him most of the time,” Corson said.

  I grinned as I twisted my glass on the table. “Raphael’s still a dick.”

  “Oh, definitely.”

  However, though neither of us said it, we both liked the golden boy too.

  “Now what?” Corson asked.

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  “I wouldn’t know either.”

  I listened to the ticking of the snow and wondered how Wrath could stand out there for so long.

  Finally, Corson rested his palms on the table and rose. “I should return to Wren. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “See you in the morning.”

  He was halfway across the room before I asked the question I feared voicing the most. Corson would tell me the truth; I knew he would.

  “Corson.” He stopped walking and turned to look at me. “Do you trust me?”

  Without hesitation, he replied, “With Wren’s life.”

  And her life meant more to him than anyone else’s. Neither of us spoke again before he left the room.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Wrath

  I didn’t turn when I heard the snow crunch. I was already aware that Bale approached by the scent of her and because Zorn barely lifted his head at the sound. If it were anyone else, he would have risen from where he lay in the snow.

  Even now, he looked asleep, but his pricked ears were turned in the direction of the guards in the woods. Occasionally, they would twitch a little bit to the left or right, and I knew the guards were shifting their position. I couldn’t see the guards, but they were probably watching me as much as they were keeping guard against their enemies.

  I didn’t turn to look at Bale; I’d been curious if I would see her again, or if she would hide with her friends, or maybe send one of them out to tell me to leave. However, I should have known she would come herself. She would never put one of them at risk by asking them to do such a thing.

  “Aren’t you freezing out here?” she asked.

  “It was colder inside,” I replied as I turned my head to look at her.

  She was huddled into a thick winter coat as snow spiraled lazily around her. The voluminous material hid her spectacular figure, but I already knew what lay beneath, and I would always remember every detail of it.

  The falling flakes stood out vividly against her fiery hair. The sight of her, so brilliant against the white snow, caused my cock to stir as she woke the voracious, greedy beast of desire that was my constant companion since encountering her.

  “What do we do now?” she asked.

  “Leave it all behind and start our own life somewhere else.”

  She blinked at me as if the possibility had never occurred to her, and that was because it hadn’t. I’d been standing out here for a couple of hours thinking about escaping from all this with her, but she never once considered giving it up for me. However, for a brief moment, I saw a surge of hope in her eyes before it vanished.

  “I can’t do that. These are my friends, my family. My sister—”

  “Understood,” I said more briskly than I intended.

  “This is all I’ve ever known.”

  “Understood.”

  “I love them.”

  “You don’t have to explain it to me, Bale.”

  “You don’t love the horsemen; I have many loved ones here, Wrath. They became my family when I had none. They’ve saved my life more times than I can count and sacrificed for me too. They trust me completely, and I trust them.”

  “Even now?”

  “Now that they know you’re my Chosen, they still trust me completely. Do you understand what that is like?”

  “No,” I admitted because I’d never experienced such a thing. No one had ever trusted me, and I trusted them even less.

  “Wrath—”

  “I understand, Bale.”

  I didn’t. Not at all. She had something here I’d never experienced in my life, and until now, I’d never yearned for it. But I found myself wanting that kind of faith and love in my life. What was I becoming?

  Weak. You’re becoming weak.

  But I didn’t feel weak. I felt… confused. Something I never was. I always knew what I wanted and got it. I went after the things they said I couldn’t have, and I got them. More often than not, I ended up destroying them for fun, but I didn’t want to destroy Bale. I wanted her to be happy, and I’d seen the way her eyes shone tonight as she sat with her friends, catching up on everything they’d experienced while apart.

  “So what do we do?” she asked.

  “Why do we have to figure out what we’re going to do now?”

  “We can’t go on being enemies but not being enemies.”

  “I’ve been alive a long time, and the one thing I’ve learned is there will always be questions, but there may never be answers to them.”

  She tugged the coat closer around her. When she started to lift the hood, I stopped her with one word. “Don’t.”

  Her hands stilled, and she didn’t pull
it up; instead, she let it fall back into place. Snow fell from the material to spill around her, but she didn’t ask why I requested for her to leave it down. I suspected she was aware I had to see her.

  “Are my friends safe around you?” she asked.

  “That depends.”

  A fine line appeared between her brows as she frowned at me. “On what?”

  “Have you fucked any of them?”

  Her eyebrows rose. “We both have pasts.”

  “I’m aware of that, but I can’t… I won’t be in the same room as someone from your past. I’ll kill them.”

  Her gaze fell to the flames encircling my wrists. She licked her lips before her gaze darted away, and I caught the scent of her heightened arousal. My body reacted as if she were naked in front of me

  “Have you?” I growled.

  “No. I’ve never been with anyone here.”

  “Good.”

  Her eyes shot back to me. “And what about you with your tree nymphs?”

  “I’ve enjoyed a tree nymph or two in my life, but not since meeting you.”

  Disbelief filled her face.

  “You ruined me for all other women the second you kissed me in the minotaur’s labyrinth.”

  “Good.”

  A part of me thrilled at that word. She’d battled it, but she was as lost to me as I was to her… or almost as lost. I studied my marks on her neck, marks she had not given to me. She hadn’t given herself entirely yet, but she would. I would make sure of it.

  “But it was you who kissed me.”

  I grinned at her. “If that’s what you want to believe.”

  She gave me a disgruntled look as she folded her arms over her chest. “So, are my friends safe around you?”

  “Yes, unless they try to attack me, and then I won’t hesitate to kill them.”

  “Fair enough. And what will you do when we go after Death and Pride?”

  “You won’t have to go after them.”